Stephen Blackpool As A Working Class Hero In Hard Times By Charles Dickens

In a realist novel like Charles Dickens Hard Times, a hero is one that carries themselves with fancy, but lives in a world of facts. Sissy is full of fancy from the start; she helps the other characters, especially Mr. Gradgrind, come to the realization that a little fancy is needed in a world full of facts. Stephen Blackpool is seen as a working class hero, for he helps the reader find a face in the crowd and shows the reader that although he is a “Hand” he is also an individual and a human being. Sissy Jupe, Thomas Gradgrind Sr., and Stephen Blackpool all resemble Dickens’s vision of a hero somewhere throughout the novel.

In the start of the novel Thomas Gradgrind Sr. believes in strict education and with that he teaches his children…show more content…66). Stephen Blackpool, is a hero but, unlike Sissy and Mr. Gradgrind, he is a working class hero. He helps the reader find a face in the crowd, and shows the reader that although he is a “Hand” he is also an individual and a human being. It is obvious to see that Coketown needs more fancy based on the view of the Hands. Unlike many of the others men working at the loom, he is not looking for luxury like "turtle soup and venison." He is in a loveless marriage with a drunken women and he is scared to come home to her. Blackpool truly loves Rachel, a women that tends to his drunken wife. Rachael and Blackpool’s love is strong and he does not want to stay in his loveless marriage. Steven Blackpool asks Mr. Bounderby if he has any legal recourse and if there is a possibility of getting a divorce from his alcoholic wife, after she left him, and came back than before worse. Throughout the conversation, Bounderby explains that only the wealthy have the ability to obtain divorces. The law is only permitted under certain circumstances and the laws were made by the rich, for the rich. Mr. Bounderby proclaims “Hem! There’s a sanctity in this relation of life,” said Mr. Bounderby,…show more content…Gradgrind and Blackpool become heroes as well. She was one of Gradgrinds students or better known as student number twenty. Her father works with horses at the circus. Since Mr. Gradgrind preaches all about facts, he does not like this, and doesn’t want her to talk about him to others. When Mr. Gradgrind talks to her about her father’s profession, he says, “You mustn’t tell us about the ring, here. Very well, then. Describe your father as a horsebreaker. He doctors sick horses, I dare say?” “Oh yes, sir” “Very well, then...Give me a definition of a horse,” (Chapter 2 p. 11). Sissy’s father lost the ability to do his job, and out of shame, he runs away leaving his daughter behind. Sissy Jupe goes to stay with the Gradgrinds. When she is there, he tries to change her and make her follow his ways, but she stays true to herself and will not change from believing in fancy to believing in fact. She begins to take on a more important role, and becomes more of a motherly figure at Stone Lodge. Sissy takes care of Mrs. Gradgrind instead of the family taking care of her when she becomes very sick. Jane, Gradgrind’s youngest daughter, is a happier little girl than her sister Louisa because Sissy largely raises her. Louisa notices how happy Jane is and sees that Jane seems to have had a better childhood than Louisa. Louisa wants to know how to have a little more fancy in her

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December 19, 2014
Research Paper- Final Draft
Fact and fancy are important in Hard Times and each term represents how the characters are affected by such a way of living; in which a character lives the life of only facts and the other living a life of fancy. For example, Mr. Gradgrind believes that the philosophy of fact is an matter of principle and that children should only be taught facts and nothing else. Dickens demonstrates that fact and fancy must work intertwined so that the individual can…